“Hard? Impossible, you mean!”
“Glory!”
“Oh, I'm only a pagan, and always have been; but I can't believe in a God that does nothing—I won't, I won't!”
“Still, we can't see the end yet. After the cross the resurrection, as the Church folks say; and who knows but out of all this——”
“What's to become of his church?”
“Oh, there'll be people enough to see to that, and if the dear Archdeacon—but he's busy with Mrs. Macrae, bless him! She has gone to wreck at last, and is living hidden away in a farmhouse somewhere, that she may drink herself to death without detection and interruption. But the Archdeacon and Lord Robert have found her out, and there they are hovering round like two vultures, waiting for the end.”
“And his orphanage?”
“Ah, that's another pair of shoes altogether, dear. Being an institution that asks for an income instead of giving one, there'll be nobody too keen to take it over.”
“O God! O God! What a world it is!” cried Glory.
After dinner she went off to Westminster in search of the orphanage. It stood on a corner of the church square. The door was closed, and the windows of the ground floor were shuttered. With difficulty she obtained admission and access to the person in charge. This was an elderly lady in a black silk dress and with snow-white hair.